


A Dark Haired Girl, and a Darker Draught

by KiraMae



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:09:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4064536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiraMae/pseuds/KiraMae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because it bothered me that King Alistair's apparent invulnerability to the Elder One's False Calling is never explained, I imagined up my own explanation.  Featuring my primary warden, Mellie Tabris.  Origin and Awakening era characters just before Inquisition timeline.  Mention of previous-romance with Alistair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dark Haired Girl, and a Darker Draught

“Your Majesty? I am sorry to wake you, Your Majesty, but there is an urgent matter.”

Slowly, Alistair tried to rouse himself loose from the last cobwebs of a horrid dream, but it seemed he could still hear it, singing in the back of his brain. It was haunting and beautiful and terrifying and-

“Your Majesty?” a voice insisted more loudly.

He opened his eyes. “Yes, yes, I'm awake Edwin. This had better be important, I was having the most lovely dream about a dark haired girl,” he lied, trying to forget the nightmare. “What time is it?”

“It's near dawn. The Warden Commander arrived just moments ago, and she insists on seeing you at once.” Edwin was bustling around the room, lighting lamps behind soft, dimming shades, and assembling something appropriate for Alistair to wear.

Alistair sat straight up in bed. “Mellie is here?” he asked in a near panic. He hadn't seen her since... well, it had been some time. She used to come only by invitation, for formal events at the palace. Lately, she didn't even do that anymore. She'd sent no word that she was coming. It truly must be urgent.

The nightmares... this was no coincidence. As he had feared since it began, it must be his Calling. It was too soon. Mellie must know something.

Alistair lurched out of bed. “Have you informed Anora?” he asked, scrubbing his fingers through the disarray of his hair.

“No, Your Majesty. The Queen still sleeps in her chambers. Commander Tabris was insistent on seeing you, and only you.” Edwin had assembled a tasteful, understated ensemble in the latest fashion, and laid it out on the bed. Ignoring most of the unnecessarily elaborate trappings, Alistair seized on the soft but sturdy pants and a simple green shirt with a high collar. He pulled on tall boots, and at Edwin's pained face, conceded to also don a fitted leather jerkin with the Royal Crest of Ferelden emblazoned across the back. Within a few moments, he was marching down a hall that was already lit and lined with guards while Edwin chased him with a wet comb.

“Where is she? Is she alone?” Alistair asked, pausing just long enough to let the man smooth the cowlick on the back of his head.

“She arrived with three other Wardens, Your Majesty. Their party is waiting in your study. Shall I arrange refreshments?” Edwin tucked the comb into a pocket, his face indicating both dissatisfaction and certain level of resignation.

“Something to eat would be wonderful, yes. Nothing elaborate, maybe just some bread and meat,” Alistair answered. “Some of those fancy cheeses, perhaps. You know what I like, Edwin! Good man.” He clapped his put-upon manservant on the arm. Edwin gave a curt bow, moving off briskly towards the kitchens.

Alistair paused outside the door of his study, hesitating with one hand on the door handle while he arranged himself. He took a deep breath, and then swung the door open.

The Warden Commander stood by the fire, resplendent as always in blue and silver regalia that sparkled and caught the light as she turned toward him. The last time he'd seen her, her dark hair had grown long, but just now it appeared to have been trimmed back into the ragged bob she'd maintained when they'd traveled together. There were new lines on her face, though, and her amber eyes were more haunted than he remembered.  
She nodded. “Alistair,” she greeted him informally. “You look well.”

He let the words 'Warden Commander Tabris' die on the tip of his tongue, and instead answered with a half smile. “Mellie.” Something warm passed between them, and for an instant, he forgot there were others in the room.

“These are some fine, fancy digs you got yourself these days,” said a familiar voice from near his desk. He turned to see a heavily armored dwarf with a mighty axe slung across his back and grey streaks in his red hair and beard inspecting the rich mahogany paneling and plush velvet cushions of his chair.

“I'm a King, Oghren, and I have been for years. If nothing else, fancy chairs is part of the job description,” Alistair joked. “Not sure what else I'm good for, but this royal rear end knows how to make the most of a fancy chair.”

The dwarf laughed, approaching Alistair and giving him a friendly slap on the back. “And here I thought you might have gone and gotten all serious on me. You hang onto that stupid sense of humor, my friend.”

“It certainly has helped when dealing with some of the more petty bannorn, I won't lie,” Alistair responded with a smile. He did not take his seat behind the desk, opting instead to lean against its edge in an attempt to maintain the informal feeling of the room.

“Alistair, you remember Nathaniel,” Mellie said, indicating with a flick of her fingers the tall human who stood a few paces behind her, a well-oiled bow on his back and a carefully neutral expression on his face. They exchanged respectful nods. “And I'm sure you also remember Avernus,” she continued, gesturing towards the darkest corner of the room.

Alistair stifled a tiny scream as a ghoulish figure emerged from the shadows there, throwing back his hood. His eyes were black pits, cheekbones protruding from the gauntness of his face, and large yellowish teeth were revealed from behind thin lips as he spoke. “We meet again,” the old blood mage said in a rasping voice. He had already been frighteningly skeletal in appearance when he and Alistair had crossed paths years ago, and the passage of time had not been kind to him.

“Don't take this the wrong way, but I had sort of hoped you would be dead by now,” Alistair remarked by way of greeting.

Avernus flapped his hands dismissively. “As did I. I look forward to the day my work is done, but that day has not yet come.”

Alistair moved his gaze back to Mellie. It was a relief to look on a face as beautiful as hers, after the horror that was Avernus. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Avernus draw his hood back up again. Thank the Maker.

“What urgent business brings you to me, unannounced, at this hour?” he asked, getting to business.

“The Calling,” Mellie answered bluntly, approaching to stand before him and look him directly in the eye as she spoke, though she was at least a full head shorter than he, and had to crane her neck up to do so. “You've heard it?”

“Maker I hoped I was wrong,” Alistair answered honestly. “It's getting stronger.”

“It is false,” said Avernus, moving towards them. Alistair tried not to cringe as the man drew closer. “We can counter it with this.” He reached into a small pouch at his belt and withdrew a glass vial, offering it in a hand that looked like the withered branch of a tree. The liquid within the vial was thick and viscous, black with flecks of red, and Alistair was sure it was absorbing all the light around it and reflecting none. He regarded it with horror.

“What is that stuff?” He made a face.

“Avernus has spent lifetimes researching the Blight. It might be possible to prevent the Calling from ever taking another Warden. It might even be possible to reverse the Joining altogether, and let people return to living normal lives,” Mellie explained. “At my bidding, he has been attempting to do just that. So far, he has been unsuccessful, but his experiments have yielded something that has proved useful for this particular dilemma.”

“Why are you trying to cure Wardens?” Alistair asked, aghast. “It is a sacred duty which _cannot_ be forsaken...” He trailed off, realizing the hypocrisy of his own words.

“You were recruited willingly, Alistair. Many others were not. Some took the Joining as their only escape from death by Blight. Others were conscripted against their will. Some merely wish to retire in peace after years of service, to spend their old age with their families. Some, like you, are called to something greater.”

“Since when have you ever cared what other people want when the greater good is at stake,” Alistair said, and even he was surprised by the bitterness in his own voice. She knew full well that his first choice would have been to remain with the Grey Wardens, and yet here he was, in a marriage of convenience in a gilded cage, and at her bidding.

“We've all made sacrifices,” she said. “Don't some of us deserve a second chance? A happy ending?” The haunted look in her eyes returned, tinged perhaps with a bit of regret.

“Like you gave Loghain a second chance,” Alistair reminded her.

“And his sacrifice is why you and I are still standing here today,” she reminded him in turn.

He sighed, not ready to rehash the old fight. “Right. Tell me about this... this false Calling.”

“It started with the senior Wardens, the ones who came from Orlais,” Mellie began, dropping her eyes and pacing away from him. “It seemed odd, so many at once, but I gave them my blessing and let them go to the Deep Roads. Only my contacts in Orzammar reported that they never arrived. I don't know where they went, and I started to become suspicious. Then my nightmares started, and I became afraid. My Calling. That's when I contacted Avernus. Not long after that, other Wardens, like Nate and Oghren, who took their Joinings years after you and me, reported the same thing. I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. I'm investigating what the cause is now, but I had to come to you first because if it was happening to me, then it would be happening to you. I needed to know you'd be safe.” Her voice had become pleading and desperate, and she returned to stand before him again. “There is something coming, I can't say what, but Ferelden cannot lose her King.”

For an instant, as she declared passionately that she had come to see he was safe, he almost remembered what it had been like when this fierce woman had loved him. Best not to dwell on it. He sucked in a breath, then reached and took the vial from Avernus.

“You haven't answered my first question,” he said. “What exactly am I drinking here?”

“You don't want to know,” she answered with a slightly rueful look. “I wish I didn't.”

When he still hesitated, she frowned at him. “Oghren drank it,” she said.

“If I drank everything Oghren drank-”

“-you'd be dead!” Oghren interrupted, then proceeded to laugh.

Mellie continued to frown. “You didn't ask these kinds of questions at your Joining, did you?”

“That Joining chalice was handed to me by _Duncan_ , by someone I trust, not this walking corpse,” Alistair reminded her. “No offense, Avernus.” The mage quietly harumphed inside his hood.

Alistair stared at the vial he held in his hand, and Mellie wrapped both her hands around his, warm and steady. “Trust _me_ ,” she said.

With a grimace, he pulled the stopper from the vial, raising the glass like a toast. “Bottoms up,” he said with false cheerfulness, and tilted the foul concoction down his throat. “ _Ugh_.”

With a soft, polite knock, the door to the study opened, and Edwin came in, bearing a tray of bread and fancy cheeses and a pitcher of fruit juice. Coughing and fighting an instinct to regurgitate, Alistair lurched at the man, seizing the pitcher and an empty cup from his tray before he had the chance to put it down. After he'd drunk deeply, sure he'd never be able to get the foul flavor off the back of his tongue, he turned back to the Wardens. Nathaniel remained carefully neutral, Oghren watched him with no small amount of amusement, but Mellie only looked sad.

“What are the exact effects of this potion?” Alistair asked as a strange feeling started to spread through him.

“The Blight is still in your blood. There is no cure for that, not yet. But it... _mutes_ the tie to the Darkspawn. You will no longer hear the false Calling, but neither will you sense the presence of approaching Darkspawn,” Avernus explained.

“I don't imagine that will be a problem here in the palace,” Mellie interjected.

“Wait, and you all have taken this same draught? All your Wardens? How will you fight the Darkspawn?”

“No, not all my Wardens,” Mellie replied.

“The elements required are exceedingly hard to come by. There was only enough for a few,” Avernus said. “That vial represented the last of it. The Warden Commander was the first to take it. We weren't even sure, then, that it would work. She was the only live trial I had time for, human, elven, or otherwise.”

“Mellie, are you insane!? What if something had happened to you?” Alistair asked, half reaching for her.

“Nothing happened to me,” she answered firmly, and he dropped his hand. “After we were sure there were no other ill effects, I took volunteers. You're looking at them.”

Alistair turned his gaze to Avernus, to Oghren and Nathaniel. He looked back at Mellie. “Just you four?” She nodded solemnly.

“And now, you. Ferelden will not lose her King, not again.”

“And what now?”

“Now, you remain here and run your kingdom. I understand you are providing shelter to free mages out in Redcliffe, and that the Divine has called a Conclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. These are all things deserving of your attention. We four have our own mission, to find the source of this false Calling.”

“You can't go back out there, not when you've been rendered deaf to Darkspawn,” he objected.

Mellie smiled. “This isn't a Blight, Alistair.”

“Are you going to tell me that at no point will your quest take you into the Deep Roads?” he challenged.

The smile fell from her face. “I can tell you that, if you like. Believe whatever you want. The less you know, the better. Where we go now is of no concern to you, Your Majesty.”

“Your Majesty,” he repeated, startled by her sudden formality.

“Our business here is concluded, and we are in a great hurry if we are to save the Wardens who are still vulnerable to this false Calling,” she continued, and the other Wardens fell into formation behind her in a show of solidarity. “We'll be in touch.” And with that, they marched past Edwin, who scurried to open the door for them, and out of his study.

That night, Alistair's sleep was still restless. The nightmares, however, were different. Gone was the terrifying, haunting song and the relentless pull east. Instead, he dreamed of a dark haired girl.


End file.
